Monday, August 24, 2009

As near as I can tell, Garrison Allen wrote six books in the "Big Mike" mystery series. I have all six.

Penelope Warren calls her bookstore Mycroft & Co., in honor of the cat who presides there. Tough and macho, Big Mike is ready to match wit and claw with the most cunning critter. For when it comes to catching a killer, this lethal weapon is always up to scratch.

Desert Cat, 300 pages

Meddlesome, mean-spirited Louise Fletcher was high on everyone's least-liked list. An expert ta backstabbing, she is found with a knife between her shoulder blades and a death grip on a bright new penny. Everyone in Empty Creek has a motive, but the police are stymied. so it's up to Penelope and her felicitous feline partner to sniff out Louise's secrets, paw through her past-and pounce on a deadly killer who seems to have nine lives.

Royal Cat. 287 pages

The annual Elizabethan Spring Faire has transformed Empty Creek, Arizona into Merry Olde England. Anyone who misbehaves may be sent summarily to the stocks.

But more than mischief is afoot when Carolyn Lewis, the less-than-popular retired teacher playing The Virgin Queen, is executed in the dark of night. Her crown passes to Penelope, then the murderer takes an encore, and it's up to her and Big Mike to take their sleuthing behind the scenes...were death treads the boards and a cunning killer refuses to be upstaged.

Stable Cat, 292 pages

The Great Arabiain Horse Show is in town but high riding and good times is not to be. First a prize stallion disappears then his trainer is found outside the empty stall, shot through the heart.

Penelope and Big Mike unearth a string of puzzling leads. In pursuit of answers, a game detective and sly puss race down a rocky trail of shifting identities and secret scandals, through an obstacle course of cunning schemes and private peccadilloes...and into a deadly phot finish against a vengful killer who might just call all the shots.

Baseball Cat, 320 pages

Barely out of the dugout, trying to break a hot losing streak, the Coyotes are hoping to star in the minor leagues. But before the first not of the National Anthem is sung, someone uses the owner's head for a baseball and scores a deadly hit.

Management squabbles, money troubles, marital mayhem and an ex-major leaguer struggling to make a comeback don't make it any easier to understand why the murder weapon bears a very small set of fingerprints; what the strange file found in the team office means; or whether the victim has been concealing a secret lover. With a team of suspects, Penelope and Mycroft soon find themselves threatened by a clever killer ready to risk the whole game to get away with murder and steal home.

Dinosaur Cat, 318 pages

When the discovery of a baby Seismosaurus fossil attracts a horde of media vultures to the town of Empty Creek, Arizona, the incredible find is shadowed by an even bigger sensation. A young scientist has been murdered at the site-her body found with a bullet in the back, sending sometime sleuth Penelope Warren out to the scene. But before Penelope arrives, a mysterious explosion removes any evidence.

When penelope digs up clues buried deep in Empty Creek's history, she soon realizes that she has just scratched the surface of a very deadly mystery-one that will pit her against forces that could precipitate anything form an Empty Creek wet t-shirt rematch to more blood on the sand.

Movie Cat, 298 pages

A Hollywood film crew has descended on Empty Creek to shoot a big-budget western. But the sleey Arizona town soon becomes the backlot for a shocking murder, leaving the locals asking, who in his right mind would murdr flamboyant director C.D. Masterly, the one man destined to put Empty Creek on the big screen? Enter Penelope Warren. She's been cast as the next victim! Unless she can determine who the killer is...before the final fade out.